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CapitalPress.com
Friday, July 22, 2022
Idaho producers growing fi rst-ever hemp crop
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
Tim Cornie likes how his
fi rst-ever hemp crop looks.
“When it got a little
warmer, it exploded,” the
Buhl, Idaho, farmer said July
11.
Cornie said he expects
the hemp plants, grown for
grain, to be 5 to 5.5 feet tall
at harvest.
“Now it’s right at proba-
bly 4 feet,” he said. “It really
looks good.”
Cornie said fi eld condi-
tions “got really damp and
cool” after the crop was
planted in mid-May. “But it
still did fi ne. … I’m kind of
impressed by the resiliency of
the plant.”
The 2021 Legislature
passed House Bill 126.
The law allows production
of industrial hemp — and
related research, processing
and transportation — starting
this year.
The state Department of
Agriculture approved about
500 acres of hemp for 2022.
It licensed 10 producers,
six handlers and four han-
dler-producers — includ-
ing 1000 Springs Mill, which
Cornie co-owns. The Univer-
sity of Idaho is licensed in
Aberdeen as a producer and in
Boise as a handler-producer.
The Shoshone-Bannock
and Nez Perce tribes oper-
ate under separate USDA-ap-
proved hemp plans.
Idaho Farm Bureau Fed-
eration spokesman Sean Ellis
said he would be surprised
if hemp is grown on all 500
state-approved acres given
higher prices for other crops
and increased production
costs.
Braden Jensen, deputy
director of governmental
aff airs, said the Farm Bureau
is “interested to see how the
fi rst growing season goes for
hemp producers in the state,
and in seeing how interest in
producing industrial hemp
in the state grows in coming
1000 Springs Mill
Tim Cornie and Sarabia Silvestre with hemp in early
July near Buhl, Idaho.
years as people become more
familiar with the crop and
how it may grow here in the
state.”
Greg Willison, who has
grown hemp in Oregon and
testifi ed before Idaho law-
U.S. Chamber: Government agency
shouldn’t micromanage cattle markets
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
The U.S. Chamber of
Commerce is weighing in
against several pieces of
legislation in response to
soaring meat prices that the
organization says would
dramatically expand the
federal government’s role
in the market and ulti-
mately harm consumers.
In a blog on the cham-
ber’s
website,
Sean
Heather, the chamber’s
senior vice president of
international
regulatory
aff airs and antitrust, said
such policies in the past
proved harmful.
In the 1930s, in response
to the Great Depression,
Congress enacted laws
such as the Agricultural
Adjustment Act to micro-
manage various markets,
he said.
“With the benefi t of
hindsight, it is easy to see
that these bills ultimately
harmed consumers by fi x-
ing prices and harmed
producers by preventing
markets from adjusting nat-
urally,” he said.
In a rush to address soar-
ing meat prices and ensure
that all parts of the supply
chain benefi t from those
prices, several pending bills
would dramatically expand
the federal government’s
role in meat markets.
In particular, the Meat
and Poultry Special Inves-
tigator Act and the Cattle
Price Discovery and Trans-
parency Act would give
the USDA signifi cant new
authority to manage cattle
sales around the country.
“Unfortunately,
both
bills would harm consum-
ers and reduce competi-
tion,” he said.
The special investigator
bill would create a dupli-
cative offi ce within USDA
to combat anticompetitive
conduct, which could slow
law enforcement investi-
gations and lead to more
politicized
enforcement
decisions, he said.
“Instead of creating
a new offi ce, Congress
should simply ensure that
the existing law enforce-
ment agencies have the nec-
essary tools and resources
to do their jobs,” he said.
The cattle price bill
would displace free mar-
ket fundamentals with gov-
ernment-controlled pricing.
The bill would require cat-
tle feeders to sell cattle to
packers, and packers to buy
from feeders a mandatory
minimum of fed cattle on a
cash, spot market.
“As a result, the bill
would reduce the ability of
all levels of the supply chain
to negotiate freely through
formula and contract sales,
also known as alternative
marketing arrangements —
a system that has helped to
increase consumer demand
and improve beef quality
by eff ectively transmitting
market signals about con-
sumers’ preferences to pro-
ducers,” he said.
In other words, the bill
would replace a market
structure that has evolved
naturally over time with
one created and man-
aged by bureaucrats in
Washington.
“When has that ever
been a good idea?” he
asked.
Instead,
Congress
should let these post-
COVID markets adjust
naturally. Fed cattle prices
reached a seven-year high
earlier this year, benefi tting
suppliers up and down the
chain, and these price sig-
nals ultimately will work
to expand production and
keep prices in check for
consumers, he said.
“Beyond their obvious
fl aws, these bills buy into
the White House’s faulty
narrative that beef markets
are suff ering from a lack of
competition,” he said.
Total beef production
reached record levels in
2020, and the four-fi rm
concentration ratio in fed
cattle beef packing has not
changed meaningfully in
more than 25 years, he said.
USDA itself recognizes
high feed costs, increased
demand and changes in the
supply chain have driven
up prices for wholesale
beef and dairy, he said.
“Rather than expand the
government’s role in the
economy, create new reg-
ulatory burdens, or hire
new, duplicative regulators,
Congress should explore
other avenues to encour-
age competition and lower
prices for consumers,” he
said.
makers about the crop, said
the industry is using up a sur-
plus. That could add oppor-
tunity for growers in coming
seasons.
“This year is setting us up
for a really exciting and col-
laborative Idaho hemp indus-
try,” said Christina Stuck-
er-Gassi, who manages the
health food and farms pro-
gram at the Northwest Center
for Alternatives to Pesticides.
Ketchum-based Hempi-
tecture uses hemp fi ber to
make a sustainable insula-
tion product for walls, fl oors
and ceilings. The company is
building a new headquarters
and manufacturing facility in
Jerome.
Founder and CEO Mattie
Mead said the company now
gets its hemp fi ber supply
from an established primary
processor in Montana.
“As the hemp indus-
try grows and matures in
Idaho, Hempitecture is posi-
tioned as a buyer of fi n-
ished, processed material,”
he said.
Mead said that with more
acreage, the company would
like to see in-state establish-
ment of primary processing,
which is mechanical separa-
tion of hemp fi ber from stalks.
Cornie said 1000 Springs
plans to use hemp grain in a
meal-replacement bar. The
company is growing it on a
fi eld of 8-10 acres.
Half this year’s hemp
fi eld will be harvested using
a stripper header that takes
off the seed and leaves the
rest of the plant standing.
This will be easiest on the
combine harvester.
Cornie said the other
half will be swathed with
a draper header that wind-
rows seed and fi ber together;
they will lie down and dry
before they go through the
combine.
“Whichever we have
more success with, we’ll
have a better idea of how we
plant and harvest acres next
year,” he said.
“We’re getting our feet
wet,” Cornie said. “We
wanted to be educated before
we do more acres in the
future. We knew there was a
learning curve, so we didn’t
want to go whole-hog.”
Whatcom County water
talks stumble out of the gate
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Farm groups and fi ve mayors in Whatcom
County, Wash., blame the Department of Ecol-
ogy’s fervor for adjudication for stalling nego-
tiations on solving the Nooksack basin’s water
shortages.
The talks, dubbed the “Solutions Table,”
were to start in June and be led ex-Ecology
directors Jay Manning and Maia Bellon.
They envisioned table participants working
out a comprehensive plan to sustain fi sh, farms
and cities, similar to the multi-billion-dollar
plan developed in the Yakima River Basin.
The Lummi Nation and Nooksack Indian
tribes objected to the meetings, however, and
none have been held. The tribes said they will
wait for Ecology to initiate adjudication next
year.
In an adjudication, a judge sets water rights.
Farmers fear that once tribal water rights are
quantifi ed, agricultural water rights will be
curtailed. Ecology and tribes strongly support
adjudication.
Whatcom Ag Water Board administrator
Henry Bierlink, representing irrigators, said
Tuesday that Ecology should make adjudica-
tion contingent on starting out-of-court nego-
tiations now.
“Once adjudication is fi led, all the energy
gets focused into the legal system,” he said.
Ecology spokesman Jimmy Norris said
the agency is willing to engage in talks, even
if the tribes don’t participate. But the agency
also is committed to fi ling adjudication next
June, he said.
“We need the clarity and certainty that
comes from adjudicating water rights to make
anything that comes from the Solutions Table
enforceable,” Norris said.
Whatcom County is wet, but farmers need
to irrigate for about two months in the sum-
mer. Tribes are concerned about low summer
fl ows for fi sh. Cities are plagued by winter
fl oods.
Ecology and the tribes argue that in a
water-short basin, water rights need to be pri-
Seastock
The Nooksack River fl ows through What-
com County in northwestern Washington
state.
oritized in court. In the Yakima River Basin,
adjudication took more than 40 years.
The mayors of Blaine, Everson, Lynden,
Nooksack and Sumas recently wrote Ecology,
aligning themselves with farm groups that
accuse the agency of overselling the benefi ts
of adjudication and undermining negotiations.
State lawmakers have backed both. They
gave Ecology money to start adjudication,
but also gave Whatcom County $250,000 for
a parallel “collaborative process.” The county
hired Manning and Bellon, now private con-
sultants, to lead the talks.
At a meeting in April attended by govern-
ment and tribal offi cials, the two ex-Ecology
directors championed developing a water-in-
frastructure plan that could win state and fed-
eral funding.
The judge presiding over adjudication
won’t ask Congress for a billion dollars, Bel-
lon said. Adjudication, she said, “doesn’t actu-
ally bring water into the system.”
“It falls short of really fi nding a long-
term, sustainable plan, a 20- to 30-year plan
or 50-year plan, for the watershed to be able
to deal with ongoing water shortages,” she
said.
Outlook improves for
a third straight La Nina
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
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The National Weather
Service on July 14 increased
the odds that a La Nina will
prevail for a third straight
winter, a climate phenome-
non linked to ample North-
west snowpacks.
A La Nina has a 66%
chance of being in place by
early winter, according to
the service’s Climate Predic-
tion Center. A month ago, the
center pegged the chances at
59%.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a
wholesale change,” Wash-
ington State Climatologist
Nick Bond said. “If we’re
talking about next winter, it’s
still a long ways away.”
During a La Nina, cool
sea-surface temperatures in
the Pacifi c Ocean trigger
changes in the tropical atmo-
sphere. A La Nina formed
in September 2020 and has
persisted except for a brief
period in 2021.
A La Nina infl uences
weather worldwide. In the
continental U.S., La Ninas
are associated with cooler
and wetter winters in the
northern tier, but drier and
warmer winters in the south-
ern tier.
An El Nino, triggered
by above-average ocean
temperatures, has opposite
eff ects. The Climate Predic-
tion Center sees almost no
chance that an El Nino will
form next winter.
The center says there’s a
one-third chance sea tempera-
tures will be close to normal.
The center evaluated about
two dozen climate models
and predicted sea tempera-
tures next winter will be 0.5 to
1 degree Celsius below aver-
age, cool enough to cause a
weak La Nina.
Since 1950, a La Nina has
prevailed for three straight
winters twice — from
1974-77 and then between
1998-2001.
The winter of 2000-01
was not good for Washing-
ton summer irrigation. The
statewide snowpack on April
1 that year was only 61% of
average.
Bond said climatologists
have little precedent to make
judgments about the potential
strength of a a third straight La
Nina.
“I still don’t think it’s
going to necessarily be a
really strong event,” he said.
Also Thursday, the U.S.
Drought Monitor released its
weekly report. The northern
tier of the West is in better
shape than the southern tier.